A fight with a cannon By Victor Hugo

An end of broken chain was left hanging to the carronade.
This chain had in some strange way become twisted about the screw of
the cascabel. One end of the chain was fastened to the gun-carriage.
The other, left loose, whirled desperately about the cannon, making
all its blows more dangerous.

The screw held it in a firm grip, adding a thong to a battering-ram,
making a terrible whirlwind around the cannon, an iron lash in a brazen
hand. This chain complicated the contest.

However, the man went on fighting. Occasionally, it was the man who
attacked the cannon; he would creep along the side of the vessel, bar
and rope in hand; and the cannon, as if it understood, and as though
suspecting some snare, would flee away. The man, bent on victory, pursued
it.

Such things can not long continue. The cannon seemed to say to itself,
all of a sudden, “Come, now! Make an end of it!“ and it
stopped. One felt that the crisis was at hand. The cannon, as if in
suspense, seemed to have, or really had--for to all it was a living
being--a ferocious malice prepense. It made a sudden, quick dash at
the gunner. The gunner sprang out of the way, let it pass by, and cried
out to it with a laugh, “Try it again!“ The cannon, as if
enraged, smashed a carronade on the port side; then, again seized by
the invisible sling which controlled it, it was hurled to the starboard
side at the man, who made his escape. Three carronades gave way under
the blows of the cannon; then, as if blind and not knowing what more
to do, it turned its back on the man, rolled from stern to bow, injured
the stern and made a breach in the planking of the prow. The man took
refuge at the foot of the steps, not far from the old man who was looking
on. The gunner held his iron bar in rest. The cannon seemed to notice
it, and without taking the trouble to turn around, slid back on the
man, swift as the blow of an axe. The man, driven against the side of
the ship, was lost. The whole crew cried out with horror.

But the old passenger, till this moment motionless, darted forth more
quickly than any of this wildly swift rapidity. He seized a package
of counterfeit assignats, and, at the risk of being crushed, succeeded
in throwing It between the wheels of the carronade. This decisive and
perilous movement could not have been made with more exactness and precision
by a man trained in all the exercises described in Durosel's “Manual
of Gun Practise at Sea.“